


Komorebi

by mtjester



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, kind of?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 04:47:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1765987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mtjester/pseuds/mtjester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the HSWC bonus round 2 prompt:</p><p>Komorebi (Japanese): the sort of dappled, scattered light effect that happens when sunlight shines through trees</p>
            </blockquote>





	Komorebi

You shield your eyes against the blinding light of the Alternia sun as it hits your face in peppered dapples, glad you're too dead to be permanently affected by its rays. You don’t know when the dream bubble became an Alternian forest, but you’ve learned to accept sudden changes with something like grace. Besides, you have some idea of who the memory belongs to—an old friend, somebody you haven’t talked to in a long time. You hope it’s your Terezi and not another copy.

A cool breeze rustles the leaves of the tree as you walk. You don’t know exactly where to find Terezi’s hive, so you glance up every now and then. The sun is giving you a headache, even though you’re careful not to look straight at it. As an afterthought, you pull the bottom of your jacket over your head and rest it on your horns so that it shades your face. It kind of works, and you grin to yourself.

“You should wear it like that all the time.” A familiar voice floats down from the trees. You look up, and there’s Terezi’s hive. Terezi herself is sitting on the edge of one of her platforms with the hood of her dragon cape pulled up over head, hugging a scalemate. Your grin broadens.

“Hey, Terezi!” you call up to her. You jog to the bottom of the tree and wait for her to lower her handmade elevator to let you up. She obliges, and you step off the platform onto her tree. “Wow, it’s been a long time. I don’t know how much time must have passed in being alive, since it’s hard to tell here about the passage of time, unless you’re not the alive Terezi but the dead one, in which case, I guess I don’t know at all how long it’s been for you or me.”

Beneath the shadow of her hood, you see her smirk. “I’m the alive Terezi,” she says. “Which I guess makes you the real Tavros?”

“I guess that would be a good deduction, maybe, but it depends about what’s real, which is hard for me to tell, since theoretically we’re all real Tavros.”

“Leave the thinking to the thinkers, Tavros,” she says with a laugh. “How are things in the afterlife?”

“Dead, mostly, and sometimes exciting, but mostly not. I like it here, because it’s peaceful and not dangerous mostly. Or, it was once, and it can be whenever Vriska isn’t telling me what to do, which is why I’m wandering around now.”

Terezi’s smile slips. “Vriska's around?"

"Well, not now, but she might be if she comes looking for me."

"Is she still bossing you around?” she asks, frowning.

You shrug. “I guess that might be one way to call the thing she does to me, but we’re dating now, after a fiasco involving sprites and our bodies and Gamzee, so I should probably not say she’s bossing me around so much as I’m helping her by doing whatever she wants whenever she tells me to do it.”

Her frown deepens. “Gamzee?”

“Uh...yeah?” You don’t know what part of the things you’ve said is making her frown so much, so you change the subject. “So, uh, what have you been up to, as a person who’s still alive?”

She sighs and shakes her head. “Not much.” The answer is short, and it doesn’t seem like she’s going to say much more. You sense some resignation in her tone.

“Is there...something wrong, with the way things are going right now?” you ask.

“...No,” she says. “Not really.”

“Um...if you want, you can come with me, maybe to have a reunion with Vriska, which might cheer you up?”

“I killed her, Tavros. I don’t think she wants to see me.”

“Well, she killed me, but we’re still getting along, so maybe she will find it in her pump biscuit to forgive you as well, just like I’ve forgiven her.”

You smile in a way you hope is encouraging, but she shakes her head. “I don’t really want to face her,” she says.

“Face her?”

She’s quiet for a moment, and you’re beginning to feel uncomfortable, like you’re saying all the wrong things but you don’t know how to stop. You wish you could see the rest of her face. She exhales slowly and says, “Don’t tell her I said any of this, but I feel guilty for killing her. I don’t know if it was the right thing to do anymore. I don’t know what the right thing is anymore _ever_.”

“Uh...” you say, since you can’t figure out what else to say. “Are there...other things that you’re doing now that you feel aren’t right?”

“No offense, Tavros, but I don’t think you’re the best person to talk to you about these things.”

“Oh, okay...”

You both fall silent, and at first you feel awkward and uncertain, but the rustling of the leaves and the shade of her hive are soothing. You remember staying at dead Dave’s house for a while, where memories of daytime were common, and you begin to relax. You wish the Alternian sun wasn’t so intense. You glance at Terezi, whose hood is still up so that you can’t see her face.

“Tavros,” she says, and you jump.

“Uh, yeah?”

“How did it feel for you when you got your legs back as a ghost? Were you happy?”

You grin. “Yeah, it was really a great feeling, not only because I could walk again, which was nice after not walking for so long, but also because I can fly now if I want, being dead. Even just being able to walk, without the flying part, is good because I can navigate different landscapes without being worried about my safety or without asking for help.”

“Do you...miss it? Being the way you were?”

“You mean, being without my legs?”

“Yeah.”

You think about it. It never crossed your mind to compare yourself then and now, or if it did, you didn’t spend much time on the thought. You suppose you had gotten used to that lifestyle, and it had become a part of who you were, to an extent. It represented your struggles, if nothing else. But there was a lot of anxiety that went with the limitation in mobility, which really put a damper on it. “I don’t think I miss it, at least not much,” you say.

“Oh.”

“Uh, Terezi, I think your line of questioning is sounding a little suspicious to me, and the way you're acting is making me feel concerned, so, uh...is there something you want to talk about, even though I’m not the best person to talk to about it? Because I’ll be happy to listen, if you need someone to talk to.”

She sighs, so heavily that you think you can feel it in your own chest. “No. I’ve just...I think I just made a big mistake. I think I’ve been making a lot of really big mistakes.”

“Oh...well, I think we all make mistakes, myself included, as maybe someone who appears really often on the list of someone who makes a lot of mistakes, so...it’s okay, as long as you can fix them, or in the case they can’t be fixed, maybe just move on.” You don’t know if what you’ve said was helpful, so you add, “You’ll be okay, I think, because you’re the smartest troll I know, even smarter than Vriska, and because you are high in self-esteem, which is necessary to tackle problems with gumption.”

She turns her head towards you, and you smile, wide enough so she can smell your teeth or whatever she does. She doesn’t return the smile, but her shoulders relax nonetheless. “Thanks, Tavros,” she says. “I hope you’re right.”

You still feel concerned and not a little bit perplexed, but you let her fall silent nonetheless, sitting with her in the speckled sunlight until she wakes up and leaves you to fill the bubble with your own memories.


End file.
